WE. ARE. KIDS. NEXT. DOOR.
Story of Infopunk Earth by ilbgar Ilbgar gazed at what appeared to be a pair of boards, connected by a hinge, with a horseshoe magnet holding the upper board in place by the iron nails in it. Momentarily reversing the magnet's polarity, causing it to repel the nails, and thus the board, launched it forward, while the board's springiness pulled it back into range of the normalized magnet, 'reloading' it. While this was one of the smallest and simplest examples of 2X4 technology, it appeared to work just fine, and I'd decided to make this piece public domain, since it was probable someone would try and copy it as soon as they saw it, and while most kids probably wouldn't join the KND, having some means of defending themselves from Empowered villains was for the best. Especially since pretty much any idiot with a hammer, a pair of nails and boards, and a horseshoe magnet could make a SPLANKER. However, the rest of the blueprints that were in the Book of KND, I planned to save for the KND. While most people wouldn't want kids involved in Empowered issues, there wasn't anything stopping an Empowered from deciding to shoot up a school (and they had) so the KND would have at least a cell in every school it could reach, though I wasn't sure I'd be able to get everyone anything as impressive as the treehouses in the show. Still, as long as they had a base that functioned well enough to do it's job, preferably with strong defenses courtesy of the DEFENSE-GRID, that would be fine. The book had started out as just something I did for fun. I'd gone through every episode of KND, and the movie, and did my best to write down the schematics and details of every piece of KND tech, with a preface detailing the principles the organization was founded on, combating tyranny. Essentially, the KND was meant to fight bullies, whether they were mental, emotional, or physical, regardless of age, though adults had a significant degree of extra focus, mostly because a lot more of them had power to abuse, rather than simply being a little bigger or stronger than other kids. Apparently that was enough for whatever was responsible for Empowering people. While I was already 13, I figured that since you weren't legally an adult until 16 in pretty much every country, that, by default, meant that you were a kid until then, and besides, I didn't quite trust anyone enough to do the job for me. Though I'd need to find a successor by then, I was pretty sure I could get the organization set up by then, especially since I didn't really have a social life. Well, that would probably change, but first, I'd have to start recruiting. See, I was sure that it was only a matter of time until there was some kind of incident at another school, and I'd like to at least try and make the 'job' more difficult for whatever sicko or whackjob was planning to kill school kids next. Naturally, I'd planted an acorn in the yard, just in case it worked out how I was hoping, and, if nothing else, it was growing unusually fast. If I'd needed any more proof that I'd been Empowered, that was it. Now, it would likely take some time to establish a solid KND network, and forming a Sector C in China was probably not going to be easy, and the various government would probably oppose a 'child army' on principle, but I was determined to make this work. If nothing else, KND-tech could get out to the moon pretty casually. I wasn't sure if it would be that good in the real world, but if what I'd heard about other people's powers were any indication, 2X4 technology was unlikely to work as well for adults. Since Hitler was currently running amok on Dieselpunk-Earth, and he'd already attacked several times, it was only a matter of time before he tried to destroy Earth Prime somehow. Hm, on that note, making chapters of the KND on the other Earths should be a long-term goal, right after getting the Moonbase or equivalent up and running. Perhaps Arthur's ambassador would be willing to talk once I'd gotten an actual organization behind me? Something to think about at least. 3 Months Later Thanks to the PIPERs that I, and the other KND techies amongst other schools, had been able to make, the branches of the organization could keep in contact more or less constantly. At least, there was never a delay of more than a day at worst. The pipes-turned-telephones, in combination with regular phones and radios, were used to contact kids at other schools when face-to-face meetings couldn't happen, since I'd been too busy with the Recommissioning Module and setting up the local Treehouse to work on the network the other techs were building to match the one in the show. I wanted that to have all the bugs worked out before I began work on the Decommissiong Device. While Grandfather had (probably) been defeated with a Decommissioning Device both times in the movie, there was always the chance it would work on regular amnesiacs as well, since it was specifically stated that it could restore anyone's memories, even if they'd been Decommissioned. That would, if nothing else, be nice. It might even help with, say, Alzheimer's, though since the brain itself was failing, it would likely be temporary. I'm sure they and their families would appreciate it, however. Off of that somewhat depressing topic, other fans of the show we contacted had been constructing their own 2X4 technology, at times inspired by other gadgeteers such as Phineas and Ferb, though most of them didn't have anything as... comprehensive as the Book of KND I had, relying on the fandom's wikipedia: KND Code Module, and rewatching the show itself. I'd noticed that my version seemed to be the most complete, and when compared to others, seemed to have a more solid 'presence' which made me suspect that mine was simply the best available vessel, possibly because it was so thorough. Anyway, the cells were contacting other kids who they thought had potential, who would often leap at the chance. The school shootings/attacks had been making people nervous, and many wanted to be able to defend themselves without hoping for the police to arrive in time, or for a superhero to happen to be nearby. Of course, not all the kids wanted to actively seek out villains, and since we were currently in stealth-mode to avoid the government attempting to suppress us, that was fine, but I planned to make the kids who merely wanted to defend the schools, rather than be active KND operatives, a separate branch. Similar to the National Guard and the army being separate entities, but with the same ultimate authority commanding them. Perhaps the Kid Guard, since their job would be to keep the kids in school safe while the active operatives would confront the villains on their home turf? Yeah, I liked that. With how many Empowered were running around, and how jumpy the military was ever since the Kinetic Impactors had hit all those cities, flying vehicles were off-limits for now, as those would get us caught before we began. Instead, when we needed to go somewhere, we'd either grab a ride from a friend, if we thought the KND elements could be kept discrete, or used KND vehicles when a villain was making trouble. We tended to provide 'artillery' if other heroes were present, since they wouldn't let us fight directly 95% of the time, retreating before our actual identities could be discovered, but we stopped villains alone just as often. Indeed, more than a few KND operatives had taken out would-be school shooters. While they usually just knocked them out and turned them in, sometimes they were forced to demonstrate use of KND technology, and while they were very isolated incidents with little to trace them back to me, it was only a matter of time before the government connected the dots. Either someone would blab, or the number of incidents would rise beyond what they would expect from fans of a single series that wasn't as popular as, say, Mickey Mouse, alone. Hence the continued attempt to keep things stealthy by avoiding flying vehicles. Of course, the treehouses were about as subtle as The Hulk in a bad mood, especially since the giant trees (usually Oak in the Continental States, though the Canadian branches were using Pine, and Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Hawaii used Palm) had sprung up in a single month (though how long it took to grow them had slowed the KND's spread down quite a bit). Certainly slower than Numbuh 2's seed growing in about 15 seconds, but I'd take what I could get. Besides, the few mages the government had managed to get their hands on who actually kind of knew what they were doing had cleared the trees of malevolent magic (pretty much the opposite in fact) so they were mostly left alone, beyond some mages studying them. This was likely due to the fact that, for all they were very large for their species on the outside, on the inside, they were as big as their counterparts on the show, which was an interesting dichotomy on the 'astral plane' that mages could sense. The fact that the basic structure of the treehouses had grown in with the tree, if not the equipment, was something of a mixed blessing with all the attention they'd been getting, but the lack of any obvious KND stuff inside hadn't aroused their suspicion in that direction. While a few trees had been commandeered for research purposes (though they promptly stopped growing upon being taken over by adults) a couple trees of each current type wasn't an unsalvageable loss, even considering how long it took a new one to grow. They were actually growing a bit faster now, presumably due to the greater number of KND agents. A few kids who'd gone on vacation overseas were able to begin creating cells in Europe and Asia through the friends they'd made there, so Sectors E and J were being set up. I'd decided Sectors would be the name for the leaders of the region/country's KND agents, and individual Treehouses would be Sub-Sectors. In a related note, Sector Treehouses were the size of canonical Treehouses on the inside, while Sub-Sector Treehouses were maybe half that size, so the magic was recognizing this. I was currently considering my next move, since I was de facto leader by virtue of having set up the largest portion of the KND, either directly or indirectly, and possessing the 'True' Book of KND. I had to plan carefully, otherwise people who would try to restrict us would discover us. To be honest, I was pretty sure the same magic that had grown the trees in the first place was half the reason we hadn't already been found out, but that wouldn't last forever, what with all the other mages out there, and the increasing number working for the government. The only solution was to become so endemic that they'd basically have to shut down the planet to shut us down. They couldn't shoot down everything that used the sky, or stop every car that wanted to use the road. The good news, was that I was getting to the point where I felt comfortable asking Sector E's leader to contact Arthur's daughter about setting up KND operations on Fantasy Earth. He'd probably have fewer problems with child-soldiers simply due to the realities of his Earth, though he might have a problem with a semi-independent government that didn't have full loyalty to him, so he was likely my best bet for a leader who could be expected to support the KND to at least some degree. "Alright, time to test you out." I said to the completed (hopefully) Recommissioning Module. I'd told the government guy who asked what I was doing with a SPLANKER when he stopped me as I came down the elevator set insides my treehouse I was just a big KND fan who happened to be nervous about some whackjob attacking me because he thinks having powers makes him invincible. None of that was a lie, so he bought it. Thus, I wasn't too concerned about people asking me what I was doing with an astoundingly accurate reconstruction of the Recommissioning Module, as I went to a friend's house and (hopefully) restored her grandmother's memories. I wasn't sure whether it would be permanent, and had said as much, but she was going to a nursing home in a week anyway, and she wanted a chance to say goodbye. Of course, I was aware that if it was permanent, there would be investigation into it, but I refused to simply leave it be. After all, if I was willing to risk discovery by having KND operatives fight villains, if with little publicity beyond using similar technology, then why not do this? Besides, if the KND was discovered, this was about the best way it could happen. Spinning 'attempting to fight Alzheimer's' negatively would be very hard. Not to mention we were already a global organization with the Sectors spreading through Europe from France and England, and Asia from Japan and South Korea. We were probably about as big as we could get without being discovered. Category:Vignettes Category:Fanwork